UC-NRLF 


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GIFT  OF 
Edw'm  Owift  ^oilch 


With  the  compliments  of  the  author 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  fundfng  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/artinamericabefoOObalcrich 


Volume  II  Number  I 


Society  of  Colonial  Wars  in   the 
Commonwealth  of   Pennsylvania 


Address 


by 


Edwin    Swift  Balch,    Esq. 


Art  in  America 
Before  the   Revolution 

Address 

before  the 

Society  of  Colonial  Wars 
in   the   Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania 

March    12,    1908 
by 

Edwin    Swift   Balchj^..  Esq. 


Printed  by  order  of  the  Society 
March,  1908 


)(i>t}Uf 


Copyright,  1 908,  by 
Edwin  Swift  Balch 


Art  in   America 
Before   the   Revolution 

BY 

Edwin  Swift  Balch 

Your  Excellency:  Fellow  Members  of  the  Society  of  Colonial 
Wars: 

Art  in  America  before  the  Revolution,  as  a  subject 
for  study,  divides  itself  perforce  into  two  divisions.  The 
first  is  the  native  indigenous  art,  the  art  of  the  American 
Indians,  or  Amerinds,  as  some  ethnologists  now  call  them, 
which  is  prehistoric  to  the  landing  of  the  Northmen  on  the 
American  continent,  which  still  lingers  in  some  places,  but 
which  is  gradually  dying  out  with  its  makers.  This  art 
extended  all  over  America,  from  Patagonia  to  Canada. 
Except  perhaps  in  Alaska  and  along  the  Arctic  it  is  prac- 
tically one  art,  the  art  of  the  Red  men.  It  varies  locally,  so 
that  one  may  say  that  there  are  several  subdivisions  of  this 
art,  but  it  is  always  sufficiently  similar  as  to  make  it  almost 
certain  that  it  is  the  art  of  one  race.  It  is  also  sufficiently 
distinct  from  the  arts  of  the  races  of  the  Old  World  as  to 
make  it  almost  certain  that  it  is  probably  mainly  an 
autochthonous  art ;  that  is,  an  art  which  grew  up  on  the  soil 
and  was  not  imported. 

One  wave  of  this  art  at  one  period  flowed  over  the 
plains  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Ohio  rivers,  namely  the 
art  of  the  Moundbuilders,  among  whose  mounds  some  most 
interesting  potteries  and  sculptures  have  been  found.  A 
later  wave,  or  perhaps  merely  descent  through  time,  spread 


f(aQ^d4. 


over  the  United  States  the  art  of  our  own  Indians,  an  art 
which  extended  all  over  the  original  American  Colonies. 
Only  the  other  day — in  October,  1906 — a  handsomely 
decorated  red  pottery  vase  was  found  whilst  digging  the 
foundations  of  some  skyscraper  in  New  York  City,  where 
it  is  now  on  exhibition  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History. 

This  art  rose  to  its  greatest  heights  in  Peru  and 
Mexico.  In  Peru  it  is  principally  found  in  the  shape  of 
potteries,  in  many  cases  admirably  sculpted  into  human 
heads  or  human  figures,  or  into  animals.  Many  of  these 
are  sculptural;  many  are  caricatural;  some,  showing  the 
effects  of  disease,  are  pathological.  These  Peruvian  heads, 
curiously  enough,  often  resemble  European  heads,  and  one 
might  ascribe  them  to  Spanish  influence  had  not  such  quan- 
tities been  dug  up  in  prehistoric  graves.  In  Mexico,  besides 
potteries,  there  are  some  pictures  and  many  stone  sculptures. 
Some  of  the  heads  are  grandly  done  and  resemble  Egyptian 
heads.  Much  of  the  Mexican  art,  unfortunately,  is  loath- 
some and  hideous.  The  motives  are  snakes  and  death's 
heads.  It  is  not  art  which  has  evolved  in  these  carvings, 
but  an  attempt  to  bring  out  in  stone  some  ghastly  super- 
stitions which  must  have  been  rampant  through  Central 
America.  There  is  some  evidence  that  the  death's  heads 
were  related  to  cannibalism.  At  any  rate,  a  study  of  their 
art  has  made  me  feel  that  Cortez  did  a  rather  good  work 
when  he  wiped  out  old  Mexican  civilization,  and  that  it  is 
useless  to  waste  sympathy  on  such  a  gang  of  toughs  as 
Montezuma  and  the  Aztec  priests.  I  consider  some  phases 
of  Mexican  art  as  the  lowest  and  most  degraded  ever 
reached  by  any  art. 

Along  the  Arctic  we  find  the  art  of  the  Eskimo,  a  race 
probably  allied  to  the  North  Asiatics ;  and  along  the  shores 
of  Alaska,  we  find  an  art  which,  while  it  has  some  Mexican 
traits,  showing  some  cousinship  to  Mexican  art,  yet  in  the 


5 

main  is  related  closely  to  the  art  of  the  Brown  races,  the 
Polynesians  and  the  Australasians  generally;  to  the  art  of 
New  Zealand,  of  Rapa  Nui,  of  Papua,  and  of  Hawaii. 

The  second  division  of  my  subject  is  the  art  of  the 
intrusive  white  races  of  Europe,  which  its  makers  brought 
with  them  across  the  Atlantic  into  the  New  World.  This 
is  the_art_of^lonialJimes,  which  cannot  be  termed  correctly 
Colonial  art,  because  it  is  really  nothing  but  transplanted 
European  art. 

The  art  of  Colonial  times  is  a  purely  intrusive  art,  an 
art  which  was  full-fledged  before  reaching  American  shores. 
It  was  brought  over  by  the  European  immigrants,  and  if  we 
turn  over  the  pages  of  history  we  find  that  there  were  three 
main  streams  of  European  immigration  into  America:  a 
French  stream  into  Canada;  an  English  and  Dutch  stream 
into  the  United  States;  a  Spanish  and  Portuguese  stream 
into  Central  and  South  America.  If,  then,  we  look  at  the 
arts  of  these  nations  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, we  find  the  immediate  parents  of  tlie  art  of  America 
in  Colonial  times. 

I  do  not  share  the  view,  held  by  some  ethnologists,  that 
religious  beliefs  have  anything  to  do  with  the  underlying 
motives  of  an  artist.  It  is  the  esthetic  sense,  which  all  men 
have  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree,  which  makes  some  men 
want  to  paint  or  sculpt.  Some  men  like  to  imitate,  to  try 
to  reproduce  men  or  animals  or  landscapes,  because  these 
appeal  to  what  we  may  call  their  esthetic  faculties. 

But  as  it  is  necessary  for  most  artists  to  live  by  their 
work,  the  demand  for  certain  forms  of  art  is  pretty  certain 
to  regulate  the  output.  And  as  the  ruling  church  in  France 
and  in  Spain  not  only  admitted  paintings  and  sculptures  to 
its  buildings,  but  paid  to  have  them,  it  is  only  natural  that 
many  artists  in  those  countries  made  their  living  by  painting 
and  sculpting  crucifixions  and  madonnas  and  saints.  This 
was  done  even  more  in  Spain  than  in  France,  and  though 


we  find  some  fine  portraiture  in  Spain,  with  Velasquez  as 
the  great  master,  there  was  done  for  churches  and  convents 
still  more  painting,  whose  best  known  Spanish  makers  are 
Murillo,  Ribera  and  Zurbaran. 

As  a  necessary  corollary  to  this,  the  art  that  came  into 
Spanish  Mexico  was  this  same  church  art,  which  descended 
immediately  from  such  painters  as  Murillo,  Ribera  and 
Zurbaran.  And  in  the  churches  of  Mexico  to-day  there  are 
many  such  pictures  which  either  were  brought  over  from  the 
Old  World,  or  were  painted  in  Mexico  by  painters  following 
these  already  conventionalized  traditional  subjects. 

The  same  is  true  of  old  French  Canada,  only  in  a 
lesser  degree.  There  are  still  in  Quebec  some  few  church 
pictures  which  certainly  antedate  the  Revolution,  but  I 
cannot  say  whether  these  were  painted  on  American  soil. 

In  Holland  and  in  England  the  situation  of  the  artist 
was  quite  different  from  what  it  was  in  Spain  or  in  France. 
Not  only  did  the  ruling  churches  not  pay  for  pictures  and 
sculptures,  but  they  did  not  tolerate  them  in  their  buildings, 
and  in  some  cases  the  zeal  of  their  adherents  went  so  far 
that,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  they  smashed  the  works  of  art 
that  had  come  down  to  them  from  earlier  times.  The  artists 
therefore  naturally  worked  in  other  directions,  in  the  lines 
of  least  resistance  and  most  profit,  and  in  the  seventeenth 
century  we  find  a  great  art  in  full  bloom  in  Holland,  with 
Rembrandt,  Franz  Hals  and  Van  der  Heist  in  portraiture; 
Paul  Potter  and  Cuyp  in  animal  pictures ;  Pieter  de  Hooghe, 
Jan  Steen  and  Metzu  in  genre ;  and  Hobbema  and  Ruysdael 
in  landscape,  among  its  leading  exponents.  This  Dutch 
art  must  have  been  well  supported  or  it  would  never  have 
reached  the  output,  both  in  quality  and  quantity,  which 
makes  it  one  of  the  great  art  epochs  of  all  time. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  nevertheless,  that  the  greatest 
painter,  perhaps,  of  religious  subjects  was  a  Dutchman, 
Rembrandt.      In  his   "Supper   at   Emmaus,"    'The    Holy 


Family,"  the  etching  of  "The  Hundred  Guilder  Plate,'* 
and  'The  Presentation  in  the  Temple,"  for  instance,  possi- 
bly because  these  pictures  were  not  ''potboilers,"  there  is  a 
technical  mastery  and  a  depth  of  feeling  probably  unattained 
by  any  Italian  or  Spanish  painters  in  religious  subjects,  and 
in  this  line,  as  well  as  in  all  groups  of  figures  or  in  portraits, 
Rembrandt  stands  easily  at  the  top. 

In  England  art  advanced  much  less  rapidly  than  in 
Holland.  Doubtless  this  was  due  partly  to  England's  insu- 
larity, partly  to  a  certain  inaptitude  of  the  English  race 
for  art,  and  partly  to  the  then  still  strongly  developed 
system,  which  among  the  Hindus  is  called  the  caste  system, 
and  which  two  centuries  ago  prevailed  sufficiently  in  Eng- 
land for  royalty  and  the  nobility  to  be  practically  the  only 
important  patrons  of  art.  Landscape  did  not  grow  up  in 
England  until  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  Wilson  became  its  first,  but  now  almost  forgotten, 
master.  Royalty  and  aristocracy,  however,  probably  con- 
sidered that  they  were  good-looking  and  were  willing  to 
pay,  in  some  cases  cash,  to  see  their  features  on  canvas, 
and  the  result  was  that  in  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  there  were  some  good  portrait  painters 
in  England,  almost  all  foreigners,  among  whom  may  be 
mentioned  Holbein,  Clouet,  Antonio  Moro,  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller,  Vandyke,  Sir  Peter  Lely,  Raeburn,  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  and  Gainsborough.  The  names  of  the  painters 
working  in  Holland  and  in  England  in  the  sixteenth,  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries  give  the  clue  to  their  de- 
scendants in  the  American  Colonies  in  the  eighteenth,  and 
these  naturally  turned  to  portraiture  and  historic  incident, 
although,  unfortunately,  they  were  much  weaker  in  all 
respects  than  their  great  predecessors. 

The  art  of  portrait  painting,  as  we  understand  the 
term,  is  practically  the  art  of  placing  on  a  flat  surface  in 
colors  an  imitative  reproduction  of  the  sitter  in  order  to 


convey  to  the  onlooker  a  likeness  of  the  sitter.  As  far  as 
I  know,  our  imitative  portrait  painting  is  confined  to  the 
White  races,  and  even  among  them  it  is  a  late  form  of  art. 
I  am  not  aware  that  it  existed  among  the  Kaldeans,  the 
Assyrians,  or  the  Egyptians,  and  the  first  portraits  in  our 
style  extant  I  have  seen  are  the  Greek  heads,  of  about  200 
B.  C,  which  have  been  dug  up  in  the  Fayum,  Egypt.  These 
are  really  the  beginnings  of  European  portraiture,  and  it  is 
probably  fairly  accurate  to  say  that  the  ultimate  direct  foun- 
tain-head of  the  art  of  American  Colonjal  times  is  the  Greek 
art  of  the  Fayum. 

There  was  almost  no  art  among  the  Colonials  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  This  is  perhaps  not  to  be  wondered 
at,  when  we  look  at  their  environment.  '  It  was  a  struggle 
for  life.  People  had  to  plant  corn,  and  cut  trees,  and  hunt 
for  food,  not  think  of  works  of  art.  It  would  not  have  been 
pleasant  posing  for  one's  portrait  when  the  sitting  might  be 
interrupted  suddenly  by  a  Red  man  sneaking  up  behind  the 
back  fence  and  shooting  a  stone-headed  arrow  into  the  sit- 
ter's ribs.  Still,  it  is  almost  certain  that  there  was  some 
painting  in  the  Colonies  by  Dutchmen  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  Henry  Darrach,  Esq.,  of  the  Philadelphia  Bar, 
informs  me  that  he  has  seen  some  old  records  stating  that 
some  portraits  of  Indians  were  painted  by  Dutchmen  in 
their  settlements  on  the  Delaware,  and  this  must  have  been 
some  time  between  1623  and  1664.  He  has  also  seen  some 
old  engravings  or  drawings  of  Indians  which^  must  date 
far  back  and  are  probably  the  work  of  Dutchmen.  There 
is  every  probability  that  the  Dutch  did  do  some  painting  at 
this  early  time,  since  it  coincides  with  the  best  period  of 
the  art  of  Holland.  The  following  quotation  also  shows 
that  there  was  a  little  portrait  drawing  in  the  Colonies 
before  1700:  "Cotton  Mather,  in  his  'Magnolia,'  speaking 
of  the  aversion  of  John  Wilson  to  sit  for  his  portrait,  says 
'Secretary  Rawson  introduced  the  limner' — showing  there 


were  limners  in  Boston  in  1667."*  Another  clue  to  an 
early  artist  in  the  Colonies  is  found  in  the  following  sen- 
tence: "There  is  a  surmise  that  one  Tom  Child,  who  died 
in  Boston  in  1706,  was  a  still  earlier  limner  of  features."t 

In  the  eighteenth  century  conditions  had  become  rather 
more  settled  and  portrait  painters,  whose  names  have  come 
down  to  us,  begin  to  appear.  I  have  traced  so  far,  either 
from  their  own  works  or  in  books,  the  names  of  some  forty 
painter^  who  were  in  America  in  Colonial  times :  John  Wat-i 
son,  Peter  Cooper,  Peter  Pelham,  JohnSmybert^  Robert 
Feke,  Matthew  Pratt,  Williams,  Nathaniel  Smybert,  Jona- 
than B.  Blackburn,  Green,  Theus,  John  Meng,  J.  Claypoole, 
Woolaston,  L.  Kilbrunn,  Taylor,  Gustavus  Hesselius,  Cain, 
Frazier,  Abraham  Delanoy,  Patience  Wright,  Winstanley, 
Henry  Bembridge,  Cosmo  Alexander,  James  Peale,  Ramage, 
Field,  Trenchard,  Manly,  Durand,  Smith,  T.  Karle,  Camp- 
bell, T.  Coram,  Thomas  Spence  Duche,  Joseph  Wright, 
Charles_J^iison_JPeale,  Benjamin  West,  John  Singleton 
Copky^Charles  Gilbert^ShiaTjLand^ 

Certain  men  are  also  occasionally  mentioned  as  early 
American  painters.  Among  thes^  are  William  Williams, 
Mather    (or   Matthew)    Brown,    Robert   Fujton,_Wjlliam 

♦Tuckerman. 

^The  Memorial  History  of  Boshn,  1881,  Vol.  IV,  p.  382. 

JI  wish  to  state  that  I  consider  this  paper  as  an  only  approximately 
correct  sketch  of  the  art  of  Colonial  times  and  that  it  is  neith'er 
exhaustive  nor  scientifically  accurate  in  regard  to  the  artists  of  Colonial 
times.  Original  records  are  practically  inaccessible  to  me,  and  I  have 
had  to  depend  for  historical  and  biographical  data  about  the  painters 
on  secondary  authorities,  whose  statements  I  am  unable  to  verify. 
Among  these  authorities  are:  William  Dunlap,  History  of  the  Rise 
and  Progress  of  the  Arts  of  Design  in' the  United  States,  New  York, 
1834;  Henry  T.  Tuckerman,  Book  of  Artists,  American  Artist  Life, 
1867;  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin,  Early  American  Art,  Harper's  New  Monthly 
Magazine,  Vol.  LIX,  1879;  Henry  Simpson,  The  Lives  of  Eminent 
Philadelphians,  1859;  J.  Thomas  Scharf  and  Thompson  Westcott, 
History  of  Philadelphia,  1884,  Vol.  H ;  John  D.  Champlin  and  Charles 
C.  Perkins,  Cyclopedia  of  Painters  dnd  Painting;  Charles  H.  Caffin, 
The  Story  of  American  Painting,  New  York,  1907. 

I  am  indebted  also  for  much  valuable  information  to  Mr.  Ernest 
Spofford,  Assistant  Librarian  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsyl- 
vania.    The  criticisms  of  the  art  are  my  own. 


16 

Dunlap,  Colonel  Henry  Sargent,  Edward  Savage,  Robert 
'Edge  Pine,  Polke,  Malbone,  Sharpless,  Wertmiiller,  St. 
Memin,  Martin,  Giillagher,  Robertson,  Samuel  King,  Bel- 
zoni,  Roberts  and  Malcolm.  Some  of  these  men  may  have 
painted  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  in  the 
main  they  are  post-Revolutionary  painters. 

John  Watson  was  a  Scotchman.  He  was  born  in  1685, 
and  came  to  the  Colonies  in  171 5.  He  painted  portraits  in 
Philadelphia  and  Perth  Amboy,  New  Jersey.  He  died  on 
August  22,  1768.  Two  little  half  lengths,  now  in  the  His- 
torical Society  of  Pennsylvania,  have  been  ascribed  to  him 
by  one  or  two  writers.  One,  done  in  India  ink  wash,  repre- 
sents a  man  in  a  suit  of  armor,  and  is  inscribed  as  a  portrait 
of  Governor  Keith.  The  other  is  a  lead-pencil  sketch  of  a 
lady  in  a  very  a/  fresco  costume  with  a  shepherd's  crook,  and 
is  inscribed  **Lady  Keith."  That  these  drawings  are  by 
Watson  is  uncertain;  but  personally  I  doubt  whether  they 
are  by  the  same  man. 

Peter  Cooper  was  one  of  the  earliest  painters  of 
Colonial  times,  and  curiously  enough  he  painted  landscapes. 
Of  the  man  himself  I  know  nothing,  except  that  a  note  in 
the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia  says :  'Tt  appears  by 
the  Minutes  of  the  Common  Council,  May  27,  1717,  that 
Peter  Cooper  was  admitted  a  freeman  of  Philadelphia  on 
payment  of  5/6."  He  was  perhaps  the  first  landscape 
painter  of  Colonial  America.  For  at  the  entrance  of  the 
Library  Company  is  a  picture  of  his,  presented  by  the  Hon. 
George  M.  Dallas,  Minister  to  England.  In  a  letter  dated 
"London,  January  12,  1857,"  Mr.  Dallas  says  that  a  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  found  this  picture  in  a  London  curiosity 
shop  and  gave  it  to  him,  and  that  it  was  believed  in  London 
to  have  been  painted  in  1720;  he  also  calls  it  "an  antique 
daub."  On  a  sort  of  shield,  the  picture  is  inscribed  as  "The 
South  East  Prospect  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  by  Peter 
Cooper,  painter."     Many  of  the  houses  are  numbered,  and 


II 

these  numbers  correspond  with  a  list,  on  another  shield,  of 
the  house-owners,  among  which  are  the  names  of  my  own 
ancestors,  Edward  Shippen  and  Joseph  Shippen.  I  do  not 
agree  with  Mr.  Dallas,  in  calling  this  work  a  daub.  Of 
course,  it  has  no  esthetic  qualities,  the  drawing  is  hard  and 
tight,  and  it  lacks  most  of  the  qualities  of  landscape  painting. 
Nevertheless  it  has  some  color;  there  is  some  drawing;  the 
artist  saw  that  buildings  in  light  and  buildings  in  shadow 
varied  in  value  and  in  color.  Altogether  I  should  say  it  was 
rather  a  primitif  picture — one  suggesting  the  method  of 
the  Italian  pre-Raphaelites — than  a  daub.  Its  value  as  art 
may  be  small,  but  if  it  is  really  the  earliest  remaining  land- 
scape of  Colonial  times  in  existence,  this  neglected  oil  paint- 
ing ought  to  be  worth,  frame  included,  ten  times  its  weight 
in  gold. 

In  the  same  year  as  Peter  Cooper,  171 7,  "Peter  Luolie, 
Aaron  Huliot  and  Samuel  Johnson,  all  painters,  were  also 
admitted"  as  freemen  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia.  Whether 
they  were  more  than  house-painters  or  sign-painters  does 
not  seem,  however,  to  be  known. 

Peter  Pelham  was  born  in  London.  He  is  said  to  have 
arrived  in  America  in  171 7.  He  settled  in  Boston  in  1724, 
and  opened  there  in  1734  a  school  in  which  painting  was 
taught  as  a  branch  of  education.  This  was  probably  the 
first  art  school  in  America.     He  died  in  Boston,  December, 

1751. 

John  Smybert,  or  Smibert,  was  a  Scotchman.     He  was 

born  in  Edinburgh  in  1684,  studied  in  London  and  Italy,  and 
came  over  to  Newport  with  Bishop  Berkeley  in  January, 
1729.  He  soon  went  to  Boston  and  painted  portraits  there 
until  his  death  in  1751.  His  best  known  picture  is  the  por- 
trait group  of  Bishop  Berkeley  and  his  family,  now  the 
property  of  Yale  University. 

Robert  Feke,  of  Quaker  descent,  was  born,  probably, 
on  Long  Island.    On  some  voyage  he  made  he  was  captured 


t2 

at  sea  and  taken  as  a  prisoner  to  Spain,  where  he  is  believed 
to  have  obtained  some  notions  of  painting.  He  settled  in 
Newport,  where  there  are  still  a  few  of  his  portraits.  He 
also  painted  in  New  York  and  in  1746  in  Philadelphia.  He 
died  at  Bermuda  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
aged  about  forty-four. 

Matthew  Pratt  was  born  in  Philadelphia  in  1734,  and 
died  there  in  1805.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Benjamin  West  in 
London  in  1764- 1768.  He  lived  mostly  in  Philadelphia, 
and  for  many  years  painted  signs  and  house  decorations 
there  before  turning  to  portraiture.  These  signs  appear  to 
have  been  more  highly  thought  of  than  his  portraits,  and 
judging  from  what  has  been  said  of  them  they  were  probably 
more  artistic.  Two  of  his  canvases,  portraits  of  Benjamin 
West  and  of  Mrs.  Benjamin  West,  are  now  in  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  His  most  ambitious  effort, 
known  as  **The  American  School,"  is  now  in  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  Art,  New  York,  and  represents  the 
painting  room  of  Benjamin  West  in  London.  Matthew 
Pratt's  pictures  are  simply  tyro's  work  and  need  no  special 
comment. 

Williams  was  an  Englishman  who,  it  is  believed,  was 
the  first  teacher  of  Benjamin  West.  He  painted  some  por- 
traits in  Philadelphia  about  1746-47. 

Nathaniel  Smybert,  son  of  John  Smybert,  was  born  in 
Boston,  January  20,  1734,  and  died  there  November  8,  1756. 
He  started  at  portrait  painting  and  gave  great  promise. 

Jonathan  B.  Blackburn  was  born  in  Connecticut  about 
1700.  Another  account  says  he  came  over  to  the  Colonies 
from  England.  He  painted  portraits  in  Boston  from  1750 
to  1765. 

Green  arrived  in  the  Colonies  about  1750,  and  painted 
portraits  from  then  until  towards  1785. 

Theus  painted  portraits  in  South  Carolina  from  about 
1750  to  1785.     Miss  Marguerite  Ravenel,  of  Charleston, 


»3 

informs  me  that  some  of  his  portraits  have  been  attributed 
to  Copley. 

John  Meng  was  born  in  Germantown  on  February  6, 
1734,  and  died  about  1754.  He  is  said  to  have  painted  some 
portraits.  There  are  several  in  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania  v^hich  may  be  by  him. 

James  Claypoole  may  have  painted  portraits  in  Phila- 
delphia about  1756. 

Wollaston,  or  Woolaston,  was  probably  a  British  sub- 
ject, who  paid  a  visit  to  the  American  Colonies.  He  painted 
portraits  in  Philadelphia  in  1758,  and  in  Maryland  in  1759. 
He  also  painted  portraits  in  Virginia  and  Maryland  about 
1772.    Among  these  was  one  of  Mrs.  Washington. 

L.  Kilbrunn  was  probably  an  Englishman.  He  painted 
portraits  in  New  York  from  about  1761  to  1772. 

Taylor  painted  miniatures  in  the  Colonies  about  1760. 

Gustavus  Hesselius,  probably  a  Swede,  although  one 
authority  calls  him  an  Englishman,  was  painting  portraits 
in  1763  at  Annapolis,  Maryland,  where  he  was  the  first 
teacher  of  Charles  Wilson  Peale.  There  are  two  portraits 
by  him  in  the  Historical  Society  of  Philadelphia,  of  an  ugly 
gray  color,  and  wooden  in  drawing. 

Cain  painted  portraits  in  Maryland  about  1760. 

Frazier  was  painting  at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  about  1763. 

Abraham  Delanoy  was  born  about  1740  and  died  about 
1786.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Benjamin  West  and  painted  por- 
traits from  about  1760  until  his  decease.  . 

Patience  Wright  was  born  in  1725,  and  died  in  1785. 
She  was  of  Quaker  descent  and  resided  in  Colonial  times  at 
Bordentown,  New  Jersey.  She  used  to  model  heads  and 
figures,  principally  in  wax,  which  are  said  to  show  some 
imitative  talent.  She  started  her  son,  Joseph  Wright,  at 
painting,  and  is  probably  the  earliest  woman  artist  in  the 
United  States. 


14 

Wistanley,  or  Winstanley,  painted  portraits  in  the 
Colonies  about  1769. 

Henry  Bembridge,  of  Philadelphia,  painted  portraits 
about  1 770- 1 800.  He  studied  in  Europe  under  Mengs 
and  Battoni,  and  had  enjoyed  a  liberal  education.  There 
are  some  portraits  of  his  in  Charleston. 

Cosmo  Alexander,  a  Scotchman,  came  over  to  the 
Colonies  from  England  about  the  year  1770.  He  resided, 
for  awhile  at  least,  at  Newport,  where  he  was  the  first 
teacher  of  Gilbert  Stuart.  He  died  in  Scotland  between 
1772  and  1775. 

James  Peak  was  an  early  painter  of  miniatures,  about 
1770. 

Ramage  was  an  early  miniature  painter.  He  was  an 
Irish  gentleman,  and  painted  many  small  portraits  in  Boston 
about  1 77 1,  and  afterwards. 

Field  painted  portraits  about  1770. 

Trenchard  perhaps  painted  portraits  as  early  as  1770. 

Manly  painted  portraits  in  Virginia  about  1772. 

Durand  painted  a  number  of  portraits  in  Virginia  about 
1772. 

Smith  was  a  portrait  painter,  probably  of  late  Colonial 
times.  He  was  a  native  of  Long  Island,  and,  it  is  believed, 
was  one  of  the  first  Americans  to  study  painting  in  Italy. 

T.  Earle  possibly  painted  portraits  in  Connecticut  in 
1775.  He  afterwards  studied  with  Benjamin  West,  and 
between  1786- 1792  painted  portraits  in  Connecticut,  New 
York  and  Charleston.  He  also  drew  some  historical  scenes, 
possibly  the  earliest  attempts  of  the  kind  in  America.  Some 
of  these  were  engraved  by  a  comrade-at-arms  of  his, 
Doolittle. 

Campbell  painted  portraits  in  late  Colonial  times. 

Coram  painted  portraits  in  Charleston  about  1780,  and 
possibly  did  so  before  1776. 


t5 

Thomas  Spence  Duche  may  have  painted  portraits  in 
the  Colonies  immediately  before  the  Revolution.  He  cer- 
tainly did  so  shortly  afterwards.  An  example  of  his  work, 
in  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  shows  that  his 
color  was  rather  more  mellow  than  that  of  most  of  his 
fellow  craftsmen.  In  some  cases,  however,  the  poor  cold 
color  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  many  pictures  of 
Colonial  times  is  undoubtedly  due  to  the  cochineal  lakes  and 
the  bright,  probably  lead,  yellows  fading  out  or  blackening. 

Joseph  Wright  was  born  at  Bordentown,  New  Jersey, 
in  1756,  and  died  in  Philadelphia  in  1793.  He  was  a  pupil 
of  Benjamin  West  and  had  also  been  to  Paris.  Among 
other  portraits,  he  painted  one  of  General  Washington  and 
one  of  Mrs.  Washington.  He  was  a  designer  and  die-sinker 
at  the  United  States  Mint  at  Philadelphia,  and  he  probably 
designed  some  of  the  earliest  coins  and  medals  struck  in 
America. 

F.  V.  Doornick  and  O.  A.  Bullard  are  mentioned  as  two 
painters  of  Colonial  times. 

There  are  several  engravers  of  Colonial  times.  Na- 
thaniel Hurd,  about  1764,  was  one  of  the  earliest.  Paul 
Revere,  about  1766;  Amos  Doolittle,  about  1771 ;  Smithers, 
about  1773;  Jennings,  about  1774;  and  Henry  Dawkins, 
about  1774,  all  did  some  engraving,  most  probably  on  copper 
plates.  Edward  Duffield  also  designed  and  executed  several 
medals  about  1756. 

A  rather  odd  phase  of  portraiture  in  Colonial  times  are 
the  silhouettes,  generally  cut  out  of  black  paper,  by  which 
some  of  our  ancestors  have  sent  down  their  features  to 
posterity.  Dr.  S.  Weir  Mitchell  tells  me  that  the  Friends, 
while  objecting  to  ordinary  portraits,  did  not  object  to  sil- 
houettes, and  this  was  probably  one  reason  for  their  vogue. 
How  accurate  they  are  as  likenesses  is  hard  to  determine, 
but  they  were  done  with  the  help  of  a  sort  of  measuring 
machine.     There  are  several  from  Revolutionary  times  in 


i6 

the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia,  which  are  interesting 
because  they  were  done  by  Major  Andre. 

Five  of  the  painters  of  Colonial  times  are  much  superior 
to  the  others.  These  are  John  Singleton  Copley,  Benjamin 
West,  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  Charles  Gilbert  Stuart  and 
John  Trumbull. 

John  Singleton  Copley  was  born  in  Boston,  July  3, 
1737,  and  died  in  London,  September  9,  181 5.  He  was  a 
pupil  of  Peter  Pelham,  his  stepfather.  He  painted  in 
America  until  1774,  when  he  went  to  Rome,  and  in  1775 
he  went  to  London.  He  painted  portraits  and  historic  inci- 
dents. Some  of  his  portraits  are  fair  in  proportions  and  in 
color,  but  often  the  figures  are  stiff,  with  hard  outlines.  To 
use  studio  language,  his  drawing  is  rather  tight.  He  made 
other  mistakes.  For  instance,  in  his  portrait  group  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Izzard,  painted  at  Rome,  and  now  in  the  Boston 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  the  figures  are  fairly  well  drawn  and 
painted,  but  the  landscape  background  in  which  the  Colos- 
seum looms  up  in  the  distance  is  lighted  as  would  be  a 
tapestry,  not  an  open  window.  It  was,  of  course,  the  style 
of  the  times,  but  nevertheless  such  older  painters  as  Pieter 
de  Hooghe  or  Antonio  Moro  would  not  have  been  guilty  of 
such  a  blunder.  Copley  seems  to  me  to  have  been  a  less 
artistic  handler  of  paint  than  West  or  Stuart,  but  a  better 
draughtsman  than  either.  In  some  of  his  historic  pictures 
also,  such  as  the  *'Death  of  Major  Pierson,"  now  in  the 
Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Copley  rises  to  a  higher  level 
than  West  as  a  painter  of  subject  pictures.  They  are  suc- 
cessful illustrations,  something  one  could  not  say,  for 
instance,  of  Wesf's  "Death  on  the  Pale  Horse." 

Benjamin  West  was  born  at  Springfield,  Pennsylvania, 
October  10,  1738,  of  a  Quaker  family,  and  died  in  London, 
March  11,  1820.  He  started  painting  portraits  in  Philadel- 
phia, then  moved  to  New  York.  In  1760  he  went  to  Italy 
and  in  1763  to  London,  where  he  resided  most  of  his  life, 


17 

and  where  he  became  president  of  the  Royal  Academy  after 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  West  sometimes  painted  great  com- 
positions, of  which  ''Death  on  the  Pale  Horse,"  now  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  is  perhaps  the  most 
widely  known,  and  it  may  be  said  that  these  compositions  are 
singularly  unsuccessful.  They  are  made-up  attempts  to 
limn  something  which  the  artist  never  saw  and  never  felt — 
''grandes  machines/'  a  Frenchman  would  call  them;  and 
they  entirely  lack  any  quality  of  beauty  and  any  power  of 
imparting  artistic  emotion.  Some  of  West's  portraits,  how- 
ever, are  very  different  from  his  big  failures.  They  show 
fair  drawing,  fair  proportions,  fair  light  and  shade,  a  pleas- 
ant subdued  color,  and  the  outline  is  lost  and  found.  Two 
of  his  best  portraits  are  of  kinswomen  of  mine  own — one 
of  Mrs.  Joseph  Shippen,  and  one  of  Mrs.  Admiral  Digby 
as  a  little  girl.  On  the  whole  I  should  say  that  Benjamin 
West  painted  the  best  portraits  which  have  come  down  to 
us  from  pre-Revolutionary  times.  Nevertheless,  as  he  spent 
his  life  in  England,  he  must  be  considered  rather  as  an 
English  than  an  American  painter. 

Charles  Wilson  Peale  was  born  in  Chesterton,  Mary- 
land, on  April  i6,  1741,  and  died  in  Philadelphia,  February 
22,  1827.  During  the  Revolution  he  served  in  the  army 
and  commanded  a  company  at  the  battles  of  Trenton  and 
Germantown.  He  was  a  versatile  man.  He  worked  in 
leather,  wood  and  metal,  and  made  harnesses,  clocks  and 
silver  ornaments;  also  false  teeth,  notably  General  Wash- 
ington's, out  of  walrus  tusks.  He  started  a  museum  of 
scientific  specimens,  and  helped  in  forming  a  school  of  fine 
arts,  which  eventually  became  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of 
the  Fine  Arts.  He  studied  painting  under  Gustavus  Hes- 
selius  at  Annapolis,  Copley  at  Boston,  and  in  1770-1774 
under  Benjamin  West  at  London.  He  painted  portraits 
principally  in  Maryland  anci  Philadelphia.  A  number  of 
these  are  now  in  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  Fine  Arts : 


i8 

Francis  Scott  Key;  Robert  Morris;  the  artist  himself;  the 
artist  in  his  museum;  and  George  Clymer.  In  many  cases 
the  historic  importance  of  his  sitters  makes  his  work  very 
valuable.  His  work  is  tolerably  good  in  most  technical 
qualities,  such  as  drawing,  proportions  and  light  and  shade. 
The  handling  of  the  paint  is  dull,  yet  I  should  imagine  that 
his  portraits  are  fair  likenesses,  which  show  something  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  sitters.  He  is  distinctly  one  of  the 
best  artists  of  Colonial  times. 

Charles  Gilbert  Stuart  was  born  at  Narragansett, 
Rhode  Island,  on  December  3,  1755,  and  died  in  Boston, 
July  27,  1828.  He  went  to  Scotland  in  1772  with  his 
teacher,  Cosmo  Alexander.  In  1775  he  became  an  assistant 
to  Benjamin  West.  In  1785  he  set  up  a  studio  of  his  own  in 
London.  In  1792  he  returned  to  America.  He  spent  most 
of  his  time  after  that  in  Boston.  Among  his  works  are  por- 
traits of  Washington,  Mrs.  Washington,  John  Adams,  Jef- 
ferson, Robert  Morris,  Thomas  Willing,  William  Bingham, 
Alexander  J.  Dallas,  Paul  Revere,  Monroe,  Stephen 
Decatur,  Chief  Justice  Shippen,  Horace  Binney,  Benjamin 
West,  and  many  other  prominent  persons.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  Stuart  is  usually  overrated  as  a  portrait  painter. 
Too  often  the  fundamentals  are  neglected  in  his  work.  He 
seems  to  have  made  it  a  practice  of  concentrating  all  his 
knowledge  on  the  head  and  doing  the  rest  of  the  picture 
carelessly.  He  not  infrequently  placed  his  heads  too  low 
on  the  canvas.  Often  his  portraits  have  impossibly  low- 
down  shoulders,  little  short  arms  and  dwarfed  torsos,  the 
body,  that  is,  being  much  too  small  in  relation  to  the  head. 
Whether  Stuart  did  this  on  purpose  or  not  must  remain 
uncertain,  but  it  is  bad  drawing,  and  therefore  poor  work. 
Just  as  in  the  case  of  many  other  portrait  painters,  how- 
ever, the  blame  for  his  errors  doubtless  rests  largely  with 
the  sitters.  Some  of  them  surely  would  not  give  Stuart 
sufficient  sittings ;  sitters  sometimes  think  three  or  four  sit- 


19 

tings  should  be  enough,  although  good  portraits  sometimes 
require  fifty  or  more.  Then  again  they  probably  wanted  to 
be  made  what  they  considered  good-looking  and  Stuart 
wanted  the  cash,  and  so  the  matter  was  adjusted  by  a  pretty 
but  inaccurate  picture.  Painters  must  keep  the  pot  boiling. 
You  know,  doubtless,  of  the  one  to  whom  a  young  lady 
sitter  said :  *'I  know  I  have  a  large  mouth,  but  I  want  you 
to  make  it  small."  '*0h,"  said  the  painter,  *'if  you  prefer, 
I  will  leave  it  out  altogether."  Some  of  Stuart's  work, 
however,  is  much  above  his  potboiling  level.  The  handling 
of  his  paint,  his  coup  de  pinceau,  is  always  good.  Some  of 
his  heads  are  simply  splendid  and  are  probably  the  best  by 
any  American  painter.  Some  of  his  figures,  also,  have  good 
drawing,  proportions  and  color.  Such  a  one,  for  instance, 
is  the  portrait  of  Dr.  Fothergill  in  the  Pennsylvania 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  Among  his  other  good  works  may 
be  mentioned  the  two  portraits,  of  the  first  Spanish  Min- 
ister to  the  United  States,  Sefior  de  Jaudenes  y  Nebot,  and 
of  his  wife,  recently  placed  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art  in  New  York.  These  show  Stuart  at  his  best.  They  are 
admirably  drawn,  and  are  signed  all  over  the  canvas  with 
Stuart's  peculiarities  in  color  and  handling,  and  if  all  his 
works  were  as  good,  I  should  place  him  in  the  front  rank  of 
portrait  painters.* 

John  Trumbull  was  born  at  Lebanon,  Connecticut, 
June  6,  1756,  and  died  in  New  York,  November  10,  1843. 
Trumbull  served  in  the  War  of  Independence  as  aide-de- 
camp to  Washington,  and  as  Deputy  Adjutant-General 
under  Gates.     He  painted  portraits  and  historic  pieces.     In 


♦Charles  C  Binney,  Esq.,  of  the  Philadelphia  Bar,  after  the  reading 
of  my  paper,  called  my  attention  to  the  following  statement  by  his 
grandfather,  Mr.  Horace  Binney,  about  his  portrait  by  Stuart: 
"Stuart  "  said  Mr.  Binney,  "had  all  forms  in  his  mind,  and  he  painted 
hands  and  other  details  from  an  image  in  his  thoughts,  not  requiring 
an  original  model  before  him.  There  was  no  sitting  for  that  big  law- 
book that,  in  the  picture,  I  am  holding.  The  coat  was  entirely  of 
Stuart's  device.  I  never  wore  one  of  that  color  (a  near  approach  to  a 
claret  color).  He  thought  it  would  suit  the  complexion.  George  C 
Mason :  The  Life  and  Works  of  Gilbert  Stmrt,  1879,  p.  141. 


20 

1780  he  went  to  London  to  study  under  West,  but  was 
imprisoned  for  eight  months,  and  returned  to  America  in 
1782.  After  the  peace  he  went  again  to  England.  He 
painted  the  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  Surrender  of  Bur- 
goyne,  the  Surrender  of  Cornwallis,  the  Resignation  of 
Washington  at  Annapolis,  the  Battle  of  Princeton,  the  Battle 
of  Trenton,  portraits  of  Washington,  Hamilton,  Rr.fus 
King,  and  many  other  pictures.  John  Trumbull  was  a  fair 
draughtsman  and  a  fair  colorist,  and  some  of  his  portraiture 
is  rather  nicely  handled.  His  historic  pictures,  while  they 
are  clever  compositions,  seem  to  me  to  be  deficient  in  the 
most  important  element  of  art ;  they  lack  beauty  and  there- 
fore do  not  produce  emotion.  They  are  really  illustrations ; 
very  good  illustrations  of  historic  incidents,  but  quite  as 
suitable  for  the  illumination  of  the  page  of  a  book  as  to  be 
broadly  displayed  on  a  wall. 

I  once  heard  a  Frenchman,,  a  Paris  connoisseur  and 
dealer  in  pictures,  say  of  Stuart :  "II  appartenait  a  I'ecole 
Anglaise."  I  think  this  observation  is  perfectly  accurate. 
But  I  am  inclined  to  go  further  and  to  say  that  I  think  that 
all  the  painting  of  Colonial  times  belonged  to  the  so-called 
English  school  of  portraiture,  which  school,  however,  prac- 
tically consisted  of  foreigners  who  had  come  to  England 
from  the  continent.  The  painters  of  Colonial  times  did  not 
form  an  American  school  at  all:  American  individuality 
did  not  begin  to  assert  itself  in  painting  before  1825,  and 
the  painters  of  Colonial  times  and  of  Revolutionary  times 
are  really  nothing  but  a  reflex  of  those  living  in  the  mother 
country. 

None  of  the  painters  of  Colonial  times  proper  can  rank 
among  the  great  portrait  painters.  It  is  impossible  to  really 
classify  painters,  but  it  may  be  hinted  at  roughly,  and  refer- 
ring to  portraiture  only,  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez  may  be 
safely  placed  at  the  front.  Then  come  a  number  of  great 
portraitists,  not  all  perhaps  equally  excellent,  but  all  dis- 
tinctly great  in  one  or  more  portraits.    One  might  mention 


21  ' 

among  these,  perhaps,  Titian,  Holbein,  Hals,  Van  der  Heist, 
Leonardo,  Hogarth,  and  some  others.  And  among  these 
men  the  best  Colonial  portrait  painter  cannot  be  included. 
Gilbert  Stuart  in  his  best  work,  perhaps,  may  be  ranked 
among  first-rate  portraitists,  but  he  is  really  rather  post- 
Revolutionary  than  Colonial. 

Of  sculpture  in  Colonial  times  there  is  little  to  say,  in 
fact,  sculpture  was  a  practically  unknown  art  in  the  Colonies. 
About'  the  only  genuine  pre-Revolutionary  sculpture  I  have 
seen  is  one  you  doubtless  all  also  have  seen:  ^'Le  Chien 
D'or,"  the  "Golden  Dog,"  at  Quebec.  Even  this  may  have 
been  carved  in  Europe,  but  I  believe  the  artist  is  unknown. 
It  dates  from  somewhere  around  1750.  It  is  a  fairly  good 
high-relief  carving,  but  unfortunately  much  weathered  away 
by  exposure.    Under  it  are  carved  the  well  known  lines : 

"Je  suis  un  chien  qui  ronge  Tos, 
En  le  rongeant  je  prends  mon  repos, 
Un  temps  viendra  qui  n'est  point  venu, 
Ou  je  mordrai  qui  m'aura  mordu." 

"Le  Chien  D'or"  was  put  up  as  a  threat  and  it  hung 
over  the  doorway  of  its  original  owner's  house  until  the 
latter  was  torn  down  and  replaced  by  the  Quebec  post  office. 
Now  the  ''Golden  Dog"  is  over  one  of  the  doorways  of 
the  post  office,  in  the  spot  where  it  has  always  breathed 
vengeance.  The  artistic  style  of  the  bas-relief  is  distinctly 
French  Renaissance;  there  is  nothing  whatever  English 
about  it.  It  reminds  one  artistically  of  the  Salamander  of 
Francois  I. 

Still,  there  is  one  sculptor  who  doubtless  began  in 
Colonial  times,  although  he  must  be  looked  on  as  a  post- 
Revolutionary  artist.  This  is  William  Rush,  probably  the 
first  American  sculptor,  to  whom  my  attention  was  called 
by  Mr.  W.  Bleddyn  Powell.  William  Rush  was  born  in 
Philadelphia  on  July  4,  1756,  and  died  there  on  January  27, 
1833.  He  served  in  Washington's  army  and  several  times 
in  the  Philadelphia  City  Councils.  He  carved  many  statues, 
making  almost  a  specialty  of  the  figureheads  of  ships. 


22 

There  is  another  art  of  which  I  wish  to  say  a  few 
words,  as  an  example  of  how  some  of  our  American  arts 
and  industries  can  be  traced  back  to  some  distant  corner  of 
the  globe.  This  is  the  art  of  tile  making,  which  is  now  being 
revived  at  Doylestown.  It  came  to  Pennsylvania  before  the 
Revolution,  brought  over  by  Pennsylvania  Dutch,  although 
it  did  not  take  much  hold  at  the  time.  It  is  claimed  by  some 
persons  that  the  Dutch  got  their  taste  for  tiles  from  the 
Chinese,  with  whom  they  were  trading  already  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  more  likely  that 
the  Dutch  got  this  art  from  the  Spaniards  in  the  times  when 
Charles  the  Fifth  was  their  ruling  sovereign ;  the  Spaniards 
learnt  to  make  tiles  from  the  Moors  of  Southern  Spain ;  the 
Moors  brought  the  art  with  them  from  Egypt  and  Arabia 
in  their  conquest  of  North  Africa.  But  they  had  received 
it  themselves  at  least  partly  from  Assyria  and  Persia,  where 
the  Palace  of  Darius  at  Sousa  of  404  B.  C.  had  numerous 
friezes  made  of  colored  tiles,  and  tile-making  undoubtedly 
goes  back  to  Kaldea  and  early  Egypt,  from  which  it  probably 
gradually  descended  to  Pennsylvania. 

Taking  Colonial  times  as  a  whole,  one  cannot  speak  of 
them  as  an  epoch  when  there  was  anything  like  a  great  art. 
Nor  can  one  rank  any  artist  of  Colonial  times  as  more  than 
about  third-rate  among  the  artists  of  the  world.  Neverthe- 
less some  of  these  men  emphatically  did  well.  They  had 
no  training;  there  were  no  real  academies  where  anyone 
could  learn  the  basis  of  all  painting,  how  to  draw ;  they  had 
no  artistic  environment,  no  old  masters  nor  galleries  to  refer 
to,  no  fellow-painters  to  sharpen  their  wits  against;  their 
patrons,  on  whom  they  depended  for  a  living,  probably  knew 
and  cared  mighty  little  about  art  for  art's  sake.  I  think  it  is 
a  remarkable  fact,  not  that  these  men  painted  no  better  than 
they  did,  but  that  they  painted  as  well  as  they  did.  And  I 
think  that  the  Society  of  Colonial  Wars  is  true  to  its  mission 
in  trying  to  do  something  to  keep  their  memory  green. 


Post  Scriptum.  Christopher  Witt  is  beheved  to  have 
painted  in  1704  a  portrait  of  Johannes  Kelpius,  ''the  hermit 
of  the  Wissahickon,"  which  is  now  in  the  Historical  Society 
of  Pennsylvania.  My  attention  was  called  to  this  painting 
by  Julius  F.  Sachse,  Esq.,  who  also  informs  me  that  Henry 
Dawkins  engraved  on  copper  plates,  in  Pennsylvania,  as 
early  as  1759. 


List  of  papers,  forming  Volume  I,  published  by  the 
Society  of  Colonial  Wars  in  the  Commonwealth 
of  Pennsylvania : 

r.     The    Right    Reverend    Cortlandt    Whitehead, 
S.T.D. :  "The  Capture  of  Fort  Duquesne." 

2.  Dr.  Edward  Shippen,  U.  S.  N.  :  "Memoir  of  Henry 

Bouquet." 

3.  Frederick  Prime,  Esq.  :  "Dedication  of  Tablet  in  the 

State  House,  Philadelphia." 

4.  Dr.  Persifor  Frazer:  "Some  Wars  in  Science." 

5.  George  Cuthbert  Gillespie,  Esq.  :  "Early  Fire  Pro- 

tection, Fire  Insurance  Companies  and  the  Use  of 
Fire  Marks." 

6.  Francis  Howard  Williams,  Esq.  :  "American  Lit- 

erature in  the  Colonial  Period." 

7.  George  Champlin  Mason,  Esq.  :  "Environment  the 

Basis  of  Colonial  Architecture." 


In  1894 

Francis  Olcott  Allen,  Esq.:  "The  Colonial  Flag" 
(a  brochure). 

In  1900,  in  response  to  toast 

Brig.-Gen.  Louis  H.  Carpenter  :  "While  yet  the  old- 
time  chivalry  in  knightly  bosoms  burned." 


I. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  tot^-^j^  ^^„^^ed. 


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